A Changing Land(108)

His mount picked his way past the ridge and stepped lightly across the paddock. As if aware of the coming heat, the horse moved quickly, sensing the opportunity for faster travel would be limited in only a matter of hours. In the tree line Hamish spotted smoke streaming into the sky. This, he knew by its position, was the black’s camp. He scanned to the left and right of the smoke. Sure enough there it was, downstream of the camp, a second fire; his son’s. Hamish touched his horse’s flanks with the heels of his boots and they moved into a trot. He leant forward in the saddle, the movement of both horse and rider causing a breath of air to brush at his face. Soon they were racing towards the growing tree line, weaving between the great coolibah gums and brigalow trees dominating the approach to the creek. As the denseness of the woody plants increased, Hamish found himself forced to slow and he picked his way carefully across fallen timber and ground made uneven by previous floods and the burrowing of rabbits.

He found Luke by his campfire, squatting like a black in the dirt. Some feet away was a reasonably solid lean-to plastered with dry mud. Luke stood as he dismounted, pulled his hat low over his forehead even though the sun was yet to breach the creek. Hamish swatted at the morning flies, noting the empty mussel shells piled to one side of the fire. One of the blacks had brought him breakfast.

‘It would be helpful to tell someone of your whereabouts,’ Hamish began, standing on the opposite side of the fire, his hands clasped behind his back.

Luke slurped at his freshly brewed tea, saying nothing. Hamish walked down to the edge of the creek.

‘I’ve decided to send Angus away to boarding school: The Kings School in Parramatta.’ Hamish brushed at the flies. There was rain coming for the air was humid. ‘I agreed with your grandmother for your sake,’ Hamish began, recalling parts of the conversation he’d faintly overheard from the sanctity of his study. He wouldn’t stand to have his plans ruined through petulance.

‘And how does being deprived of my inheritance benefit me?’

The brown water of the creek moved sluggishly onwards. Leaves and small twigs sailed past, caught on a deceptive current. ‘A shopkeeper’s life is not something you would take to, lad.’ Having a conversation with Luke had always been akin to having a tooth pulled.

Luke threw the remains of his tea in the fire. ‘Well that’s something you have ensured I’ll not know.’ He picked tea leaves from his tongue, searched for his tobacco in the pockets of his trousers.

Hamish walked back towards him. ‘Look at you. You can’t even spend a night inside Wangallon Homestead. Not for you the constraints of a ceiling and walls. I understand that, Luke, although occasionally it would not hurt you to sleep in your room, dine with me on a more regular basis. Wangallon is your home after all, and as a Gordon you have a name and position to do credit to.’

Luke was rolling tobacco in the palm of his hand. ‘It’s never been my home. First it was yours. In the future it will belong to Angus. Surely I was entitled to something for myself.’

Fairness was not something Hamish had considered. ‘We’re landowners. You have Wangallon.’ The boy never loved Wangallon the way he should have. It was as if some strange process of osmosis occurred, transferring all the bitterness and melancholy of his mother into Luke’s own veins so that it flowed unbridled through his body. Hamish watched as his eldest struck a match, lighting his cigarette. ‘It was your grandmother’s decision.’ Hamish was drawing tired of the subject. ‘The drive will have to be bought forward. I’ve business with the Crawfords that must be taken care of. Inform the men accordingly. Tonight you and I will be riding out for the big river. We leave at dusk so you best break camp and move back to the homestead. We could be away for a number of nights so I’ll leave the provisioning to you.’

Luke considered the man before him. He was tall, a bearish, barrel-chested man yet it was his imposing stare, a thousand yard stare, that made most men acquiesce to his demands. ‘I’ll not be accompanying you, Father.’

‘This is not a subject for discussion, Luke,’ Hamish answered sourly.

‘I agree,’ Luke dragged on his cigarette, then poked the stub of it in the dirt. ‘It’s not.’

‘The business with Crawford –’

‘Is your business. You seem to disregard my affairs so I’m reckoning it’s time I repaid the favour.’

‘The cattle need to be moved at the end of the week. On the wan of the full moon.’